E3 2005: From Russia With Love

Over the last two years Electronic Arts has started to diversify and experiment with the famous James Bond license. Starting with James Bond Everything of Nothing, an original game not based on a movie and providing a third-person instead of a first-person perspective, EA's branched away from the strict first-person shooter regimen that reached such fantastic popularity on consoles with the original Nintendo classic GoldenEye.

From Russia With Love breaks tradition yet again by reaching back into Bond movie history and re-creating the look and likeness of the great Sean Connery in his prime. Of course, it does way more than that, but the main theme here is that the newly formed team is using James Bond Everything of Nothing (EON) as its building base and moving forward with the stellar movie characters and story as its backdrop.

Due this fall on Xbox, PS2, and GameCube, EA's new game once again goes with the third-person perspective, using the target-based shooting and melee system from EON. Instead of giving games an insanely difficult co-op mode like in the previous title, EA has changed tact, offering players a four-player split-screen multiplayer game packed with six modes of play, jetpacks and other unusual means of blowing each other to smithereens. EA has foregone online and skipped co-op play this time around, hoping to deliver an excellent four-player set of deathmatch style games reminiscent of Rare's once-great title. We swung by EA's office prior to E3 to give the early version a try.

We immediately hooked up a four-player deathmatch. Using wireless controllers, myself and three development team members instantly brought the battle to a head. The level we played took place in Venice, so there were canals and two- to three-story Venetian structures surrounding a small villa square. An elevator trap ascended and descended in the center of the square. The basic goal is to slaughter your opponents, and even at this early stage (the framerate was slow and some weapons stayed on screen even though they should have disappeared), the fragging felt good and engaging.

What made the match unusually fun was the jetpack. Styled after the unit from the movie, the jetpack adds a whole new level of strategy to the match. You run by it, press a button and strap in. EA has tuned the jetpack ride to move with an excellent mechanism enabling easy vertical movement and steady, quick, and easy lateral motion. The jetpack provides machine gun fire and limited missile fire. The missiles aren't heat seeking from far away, preventing players from the cheap and easy way out. However, up close or even from a medium range, they are devastating. At once point, I descended into the square where the three other players were running about, and I blew them up one by one with the greatest of ease.

The game uses a targeting reticule that sticks to an enemy, or to you. You aim the reticule and it sticks to an enemy, but it's not a sure lock. By running into a summersault you can lose it. Thus, even on foot, you can target an enemy in a jetpack. Just as blowing the crap out of an enemy is fun from the jetpack is, ripping an enemy out of the sky when in a jetpack is perhaps equally satisfying. You can also instantly zoom in on enemy characters using a simple one-button touch.

Adding a nice touch of sensationalism, this Bond title is filled with explosions. It seems everything either blows up or is destructible in some form or fashion. You'll have to watch for explosive barrels, deathtraps, and destructible environments. The sheer amount of shattering glass, broken constructs, tanks, bridges, support beams on terraces and balconies, and whatever else gets destroyed is a rather simple yet effective way of making gamers happy. If there is one thing gamers love to do, it's to blow stuff up.

The multiplayer game also included other weapons, namely the Golden Gun, which delivers a one-shot kill, and it was also packed with armor and bonuses. When finished this fall, the EA team plans to implement random negative and positive power-ups, somewhat like in Mario Kart. Things like shaky hands will handicap your or your enemy for a short period of time. You might be lucky enough to find the Q-Copter, this game's aerial equivalent to EON's keen spider-bot, or if you're really lucky, you'll locate the upgradeable laser watch. It's all very funny until someone melts your eyes out with a laser watch! EA also plans on providing a huge amount of characters to play as, and several of the smaller time Bond baddies will be playable right from the start. As you progress, you'll open up even more, such as Donald "Red" Grant.

From Russian With Love offers six modes of multiplayer goodness. There is Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, and several others with which the team is experimenting. Sabotage is farther along than the others. In it, you team up to plant bombs on the enemy base while protecting your own. The team is also experimenting with drivable levels. You'll be able to drive cars, boats, and the aforementioned jetpacks. The cars will operate with all of the cool Bond car gadgets of those golden years such as tire shredders, oil slicks, and tacks. And of course, you can shoot while driving.

When our 10-20 minute session was over, I was smiling. Even at this early stage, and in spite of all the next-generation stuff I had just seen, the multiplayer games were solid fun, easily playable for hours upon hours without looking up at the clock. I can't wait to play it when everything is finalized, smooth, and shiny. Although I'm still a big fan of co-op play, multiplayer four-player split-screen is still a great way to go. No connections needed, just four controllers and four willing souls. We'll have even more good stuff to talk about in the upcoming months on From Russia With Love, so stick around.